“P2P should be here to stay. The non-trade press have been giving it a bit of a kicking for the last 12 months. A lot of the press don’t really understand P2P lending and it’s up to us to educate them.

“It only takes one of the big lenders with a big turnover getting front page news again like some have in the last 24 months and that does cause a problem.

“The FCA is looking at this. P2P funding is a good way of funding loans as long as it’s done properly and underwritten correctly with a system around it – and if it doesn’t have that, it falls down.”

However Damien Druce, director of Assetz Capital, another P2P bridging lender, was more positive about the future of P2P lending.

He said: “We have a diverse funding line and we would expect other P2P to have a similar structure.

“We’re very optimistic about the future as a business. We won’t mess about with the rules and continue to evolve with the right credit risks to ensure our underwriting protects investors and if we do, we see no reason why the market can’t go from strength to strength.”

Gary Clark, a business development manager for bridging at LendInvest, said that people need to differentiate between a company solely reliant on P2P to lend and those that aren’t – that can write the loan essentially with their own money and can then sell that loan.

He said: “There’s a huge difference between those two structures. If you don’t make the differentiation between that the whole P2P market is tarnished with quite an unfair way of looking at it.”